


Reflecting

by HotAndColdAF



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotAndColdAF/pseuds/HotAndColdAF
Summary: It bothered me a little, how quickly Shiro's attitude towards Kolivan turned around between The Blade of Marmora and The Belly of the Weblum, so I wrote a little something to smooth things over for myself. In which Kolivan and Shiro have a chat, mostly about the whole Ulaz issue.





	Reflecting

A knock on the door pulled Kolivan out of his thoughts. He'd been confined to this room shortly after his arrival on the Altean castle. The Red Paladin needed time to recover after the Trials, the Black Paladin needed to make a proper report to the Princess about what happened, and their entire team needed time to process that one of their own had Galra blood. Kolivan's input was not required for any of that, and Princess Allura had no compunctions about making it clear his presence wasn't appreciated. Thus, until they were actually needed, Kolivan and Antok were confined to private quarters.

( _Separate_ quarters. Antok had bristled at that, but stood down at Kolivan's acceptance. Kolivan was confident that he would be able to break out of this room if necessary, even more than he was confident that he wouldn't _have_ to.)

In the meantime, Kolivan kept himself occupied by thinking through plans and strategies. Until now, the knock. A voice followed it.

"Can I come in? I want to talk to you."

The Black Paladin. Shiro, Kolivan reminded himself. That he would ask permission to enter part of his own territory was very strange, and Kolivan thought the question to be solely rhetorical until his silence was met not with an entrance, but with another question. "...Are you awake?"

A response was expected, then.

"Yes. You may come in, of course."

Shiro was still wearing his Paladin armor, and he didn't stray from the door after he entered; instead he leaned back against it with his arms crossed. Securing a path of escape? Or blocking off Kolivan's? His expression didn't seem hostile, but there was no doubt it was guarded. Either way, Kolivan had no desire to do anything that could be interpreted as aggressive, so he remained seated on the all-too-small bed. "What did you wish to talk about?"

"I figured out something that's been bothering me. About you."

Kolivan had thought it would be fairly obvious what about him would be bothersome to a former prisoner of the Empire, but he wasn't about to say as much. Shiro seemed to mean something more personal than that. "What would that be?"

Shiro paused before answering, apparently not quite sure where to start. "...Let me explain. When I was in training to be a pilot, back on Earth, I had to share my living quarters with someone named Roy Fokker. And, honestly, I _hated_ that guy. He was always flouting the Garrison's rules, always bringing girls back to our room, he never listened to anyone, and he never took anything seriously. I was at the top of our class, but we both knew that if he actually applied himself, he'd be better. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand _him_. We were always fighting with each other, right up until our graduation."

This... did not sound like Kolivan in the slightest. "I don't follow," he said.

Shiro shook his head. "I'm not finished yet. A few years ago, there was an accident. He took a risk he thought he could handle, and it turned out he couldn't. He got hurt pretty badly. He almost died. And when I found out, I was _furious_. I don't think I've ever been that mad at another human being in my entire life. It took everything I had not to deck him right there in the hospital. If he really had died, I don't think I ever would've forgiven him for it."

Shiro looked at Kolivan then, and there was a softness in his expression that wasn't there before. "You still haven't forgiven Ulaz."

Ah.

"You're very astute," Kolivan observed.

Shiro shrugged his shoulders lightly. "I know the feeling."

"This Roy Fokker, what happened to him?"

"His injuries were too severe for him to go back to piloting after that. Or, at least, piloting anything that could leave the atmosphere." 'And what's even the point if you can't leave the atmosphere,' Shiro's expression seemed to say. "He's a teacher now, if you can believe it."

Kolivan considered this. "...It would be hard to imagine Ulaz teaching."

Shiro's gaze dropped to the floor, and his voice became quiet. "I guess I didn't really know him well enough to say."

"He was insufferable," Kolivan answered bluntly. "I knew him for a very long time, and very rarely did we see eye to eye. No matter what, he was always convinced he was in the right. More than once, he disregarded my orders in favor of his own judgement. He was proud and stubborn, in all the worst ways." Shiro's stare had turned hard again, but Kolivan ignored it and continued. "But he was also immensely dedicated to the cause, and very clever, despite his reckless nature. Some of the times he defied me, he was even correct to."

Shiro's expression grew troubled at that. "...There's something I've been meaning to ask you. When Ulaz freed me, was that also against your orders?"

Again, Kolivan was blunt in his response. "Yes." Almost imperceptibly, Shiro flinched. "I told him repeatedly that you were none of the Blade's concern. The loss of a gladiator, no matter how accomplished, would be no great blow to the Empire, and if he was so thoroughly convinced of your potential as a leader, then it was better to leave you for a group you were actually qualified to lead. When the Blue Lion was discovered on your planet, he finally had the excuse he was looking for. He decided on his own to act on that information. If he had bothered to ask my permission first, I would not have given it."

Shiro clearly didn't like that answer. "Why not?" he demanded. "Were you going to just _let_ Zarkon take the Blue Lion?"

As the Black Paladin grew more agitated, Kolivan made sure to keep his own tone calm and even. "I had no reason to believe you would be capable of stopping him from taking anything. Your people are no match for the might of the Empire, and the chances that you could locate the Lion yourself along with someone it would accept as its Paladin were so slim as to be negligible. The risk was not worth the cost."

"It paid off." Shiro was no longer leaning back against the door, but standing fully upright, with his hands balled into fists at his side, and his voice took on the same insistent tone it had held during the Red Paladin's Trials. Were humans all this hotheaded and temperamental, Kolivan wondered, or was it just these two? "Ulaz did the right thing."

"Your opinion on the matter is irrelevant. You do not have an objective view of the situation."

"We have Voltron. How can you possibly say that wasn't worth it? There's so much we've accomplished in such a small amount of time. We've freed _entire planets_ from Zarkon's grasp. Entire _societies_ that no longer have to live in _fear_ of--" Shiro stopped suddenly to take a deep breath, and the tension eased out of his posture. When he started speaking again, his tone and expression were still hard and determined, but they no longer carried the almost frantic quality that they'd held before. "We can accomplish even more with your help. I know our actions so far probably seem reckless to you, but you have to understand that we've been working with information that's 10,000 years out of date at best along with what little we've managed to gather firsthand. We've been doing the best we can, but freeing one planet at a time isn't going to win this war. If we're really going to make a difference, we need to be able to hit them where it hurts. We need current information on their supply routes, troop locations, where their forces are the most vulnerable. The kind of information your people have been gathering all this time. The time has come to put that knowledge to use. With your help and Voltron's strength, we can turn the tide of this war. Together, we can defeat Zarkon. Ulaz believed in that. He believed in _us_ , enough to give his life for it. I won't let his sacrifice go to waste."

He spoke with a lot of confidence for someone who could not possibly know exactly how _much_ Ulaz had thrown away so recklessly, but that wasn't really a surprise. Ulaz had thrown it all away for a reason, after all. "He saw something in you. But until I see it for myself, I cannot say whether or not that belief was well-founded."

Shiro broke eye contact again, glancing towards the floor. "When he freed me, he told me I give hope. I've been trying to figure out what he meant by that."

It seemed straightforward enough to Kolivan. Ulaz had been many things, but subtle was not one of them. That Shiro was so hesitant to take such a statement at face value was... interesting. "He likely meant exactly what he said. Is there a reason you doubt it?"

Shiro crossed his arms again and a troubled look crossed his face before he answered. "It's just hard to believe there was a lot of hope to go around in the arena."

"That would be what would make the act so impressive," Kolivan said, and he rose to his feet. Shiro flinched again as he did, more pronounced than it was the first time. He recovered quickly, squaring his shoulders and deliberately looking Kolivan in the eye, but Kolivan politely acted as though he hadn't noticed it regardless. " _If_ he saw it accurately. I will be watching you to see if his judgement was correct."

"Well, let me know if you figure it out." Shiro sighed and broke eye contact, pulling away back towards the door. Perhaps Kolivan's movements had startled him even worse than he thought, if he was so suddenly retreating. "I should get some sleep."

But Kolivan was not quite finished with him. "Shiro. One more thing." Shiro paused in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder. "Do not think I would forgive _you_ for dying, either."

Surprise showed on Shiro's face briefly, before it softened into a smile. "Yeah, okay." He turned back to the door, and gave a casual parting wave as he left through it. "Get some rest, Kolivan. I'll see you tomorrow."

**Author's Note:**

> This was definitely not just an excuse to put to paper my headcanon about Roy Fokker being Shiro's roommate back in his cadet days, I don't know why you would ever accuse me of such a thing!!!


End file.
